Occhii, a Buzzy New York Label, Creates Clothes From Discarded Scarves

What to do with a bunch of discarded scarves? Leonid “Leo” Batekhin, who showed his label Occhii for the first time this Resort season, simply made clothes from them. The New York–based designer’s cream blouses and cropped jackets are the remnants of traditional Russian scarves, boasting friendly paisley prints, often stained by fist-size blue or red ink blots. “If you go to any Russian souvenir shop, you’ll find them,” he says of the scraps; he discovered his at a factory three hours outside of his native Moscow. “It is a borderline corny type of thing that I find very exciting.” Also in the mix are customizable unisex pieces, such as poppy-red or light blue shirts with detachable sleeves that the wearer could mix and match. Another benefit? The sleeves are nicely structured, so, in theory, one could sport them on their own.

Batekhin has worked under Narciso Rodriguez, Protagonist, and most recently, Matthew Adams Dolan, and has wanted to be a fashion designer since age 5. “My mother was always an inspiration to me, and I would imagine how I would dress her,” Batekhin says. “I remember also helping her pick her outfits whenever there was a celebration or an event she would need to dress up for.” Though he had his sights set on designing, he first studied economics at Moscow State Institute of International Relations in Russia. But after finishing his degree, he enrolled in Parsons School of Design for his associate’s degree in 2010 and later for his bachelor’s in 2012.

Batekhin’s motherland is a running theme in his collection. The pleated, puffy sleeves come from the shirts of Russian peasants from the late 19th and early 20th century. (Batekhin’s mood board is dotted with portraits of stoic field-workers and bucolic paintings by Kazmir Malevich.) “The Russians in the royal inner circle of the czars wore long sleeves, they have cut-outs in the middle,” he says of the inspiration behind his detachable sleeves. Another nod comes as an elongated button-down shirt; the tailored garb is based off of a Soviet movie that features a fashion show. As Batekhin describes it, the model walks out in pants that are supposed to unbutton into shorts, but there is a snag and he cannot fully unbutton them. His light-blue lab coat detaches simply at the waist, thanks to a row of buttons.

While there are plenty of old-country references in Occhii, the central philosophy isn’t necessarily Russian: Batekhin employs an eco-friendly attitude, as well. He created a tunic dress from dark-wash Japanese denim that is covered in strips of his friend’s old Levi’s jeans, and relates it to a simple brown paper bag hanging on his mood board. “Basically, this is trash,” he says, pointing to the bag. “This [a scarf] is trash as well, and all jeans that were going to be put into trash bin were also trash.” Turns out one man’s trash is truly another man’s treasure.